Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports.
Addax Petroleum Development employees have gone on strike in protest of anti-labor practices.
Addax is a Chinese company that owns four oil mining leases: OMLs 123, 124, 126, and 137.
It operates the assets under a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation before converting to a limited liability company (NNPC).
The company employs 324 people, with 141 full-time employees and 183 contract workers.
The workers, who are members of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), claim that Addax management refused to engage them on labor-related issues after the Federal Government revoked its licenses.
If management refused to hire them, the workers threatened to shut down the company’s operations, including oil wells, valves, crude lifting, and export terminals, claiming that previous attempts to bring management to the negotiating table had failed.
According to the workers, after the APN Management informed its employees in a town hall meeting of the NNPC’s withdrawal of operating licenses, both parties met and reached a financial term of exit settlement for all workers.
The financial exit settlement, according to our source, will be carried out when Addax Petroleum Nigeria’s PSC agreement for OML 123 and 124 expires on July 1, 2022.
According to a source, “Addax Management has so far rebuffed our call for the execution of the financial exit settlement and other employee-related issues.”
PENGASSAN’s Lagos Zone Senior Assistant General Secretary, Comrade Babatunde Oke, confirmed that the strike was initiated by members in response to management’s refusal to engage the association on the previously agreed-upon financial settlement.
Workers have waited patiently for management, according to one worker who spoke to our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, “but it appears that they are insensitive to our problems.”
“Many letters requesting a meeting were written, but Management refused to meet with them,” the worker explained.
The strikers claimed that the Federal Government, through the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), had done everything possible to resolve the issues amicably.
